* Republican Senator Jim DeMint said he would be stepping down from his seat in January to run the conservative think-tank the Heritage Foundation.

A key point that could be made here is DeMint's notoriety for clashing with GOP leadership. This week, DeMint, a favorite of the Tea Party movement, denounced House Speaker John Boehner's fiscal cliff proposal. In particular, DeMint noted that Boehner's proposal for $800 billion in increased tax revenues would only heighten Washington politics and put more people out of work. For more color, click here.

* The European Central Bank lowered its expectations on euro-zone GDP for this year, now seeing negative 0.5 percent and lowered 2013 expectations from negative 0.9 percent to positive 0.4 percent. The ECB also expects growth of 0.2 percent to 2.2 percent in calendar 2014.

Ahead of that announcement, the ECB earlier said it was leaving its benchmark rate low at 0.75 percent.

* Hedge fund Diamondback Capital Management is slated to shutter its doors as investors have largely liquidated their stake in the firm. According to a letter from co-founders Richard Schimel and Lawrence Sapanski, Diamondback received requests from investors to withdraw $520 million from the fund, amounting to about 26 percent of total assets. A majority of the equity is expected to be returned next month.

* Sirius XM Radio Inc. (Nasdaq: SIRI) today announced that its Board of Directors has approved a $2 billion common stock repurchase program. In addition, the company declared a special dividend of 5 cents per share, for a current yield of 1.8 percent. In total, Sirius is going to pay out about $2.325 billion. For more color, click here.

* Netflix (Nasdaq: NFLX) shares are active in late trading Thursday following disclosure that the company and CEO Reed Hastings received a Wells notice from the U.S. SEC. The notice was over a regulation FD violation.

Hastings basically said it was for lack of disclosure following a Facebook (Nasdaq: FB) post that users enjoyed nearly a billion hours per month” of Netflix. For more on the notice and Reed's response, click here.

* Zynga (Nasdaq: ZNGA) filed for gaming licenses in Nevada that uses real money. Though the news is exciting for investors (MGM Resorts (NYSE: MGM) saw a little pop today, too), Zynga will have to wait 12 months to 18 months before a final determination on it. For more, click here.

* Initial jobless claims fell 25,000 to 370,000 apps last week, coming in just below consensus views calling for a drop to 382,000 apps. The four-week moving average rose 2,250 to 408,000 apps.

Click here to go to Streetinsider's Full News Feed and never miss a beat!